I am sorry to have to tell you this, but I have evidence of lies that the President told America and the world.  I have further evidence that he knew about a planned attack on us but did not act this knowledge.  Such inaction led directly to loss of civilian lives in a successful attack on American soil, led to war, and to the deaths of American soldiers and civilians.

Lets look at the facts.  First, it is certain that the President was anxious for war for his own reasons.  Both because of pressure from supporters, for the purpose of helping the economy and because felt war was inevitable and wanted war on his terms.  In his effort to create a war, he told lies, violated the constitution, and performed potentially criminal activities.1 

He knew in advance about the planned attack, but because of his desire for war and for other reasons, he chose not to act on that information. 2

When we were attacked, he led us into war against an enemy who had not attacked us and who was no threat to us.  This choice was not necessary and led to thousands of deaths. 3

Entering the war, he had no plan to win the peace other than to stay the course.  4

He did not supply sufficient resources to hold vital locations.  This led to disaster.  5

Before the war, the government did not create the needed supplies and armament needed to allow us to have victory.  6

He overruled generals for his own reasons.  7

He went in without consultation with the other nations of the world.  8

Russia, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, and France (among other nations) did not agree with the decision to start the war.  England was the one major nation who decided to fight along side our troops.  9

For all of these reasons, as documented below, I believe that we should take action to repudiate this evil President.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Errr.  You were expecting something else?  Lets look at the facts: 

1. Much has already been written about Roosevelt's campaign of deception and outright lies in getting the United States to intervene in the Second World War prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Roosevelt's aid to Britain and the Soviet Union in violation of American neutrality and international law, his acts of war against Germany in the Atlantic in an effort to provoke a German declaration of war against the United States, his authorization of a vast "dirty tricks" campaign against U.S. citizens by British intelligence agents in violation of the Constitution, and his provocations and ultimatums against Japan which brought on the attack against Pearl Harbor -- all this is extensively documented and reasonably well known. See, for example: Charles A. Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War 1941 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948); William Henry Chamberlin, America's Second Crusade (Chicago: Regnery, 1952, 1962); Benjamin Colby, 'Twas a Famous Victory (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1979); Frederic R. Sanborn, Design for War (New York: Devin-Adair, 1951); William Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid (New York: Ballantine Books, 1980); Charles C. Tansill, Back Door to War (Chicago: Regnery, 1952); John Toland, Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath (New York: Doubleday, 1982).
1. President Roosevelt acts on the assumption that the dictatorial governments, above all Germany and Japan, only understand a policy of force. Therefore he has decided to react to any future blows by matching them. This has been demonstrated by the most recent measures of the United States. Report by the Polish Ambassador after President Roosevelt's 1939 State of the Union
2. “Information from informers and other means [MAGIC] as to the activities of our potential enemy and their intentions in the negotiations between the United States and Japan was in possession of the State, War and Navy Departments in November and December of 1941. Such agencies had a reasonably complete disclosure of the Japanese plans and intentions, and were in a position to know what were the Japanese potential moves that were scheduled by them against the Untied States. Therefore, Washington was in possession of essential facts as to the enemy’s intentions.” Report of the Army Pearl Harbor Board
3. In case this needs notes, Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, not the Germans.
4. Initially, we lost territory and troops.  Generals were relieved.  No exit strategy other than victory was ever stated.
5. At 0800, only a few hours after the blazing and dying Arizona had broken out her colors under enemy fire at Pearl Harbor, Morning Colors sounded on Wake. Defensive preparations hummed. Trucks delivered full allowances of ammunition to each unit, the few spare individual weapons in Marine storerooms were spread as far as they would go to the unarmed Air Corps soldiers and Naval bluejackets, and gas masks and helmets of World War I vintage were distributed to the battery positions. Watches were set at fire control instruments and guns, while the balance of personnel worked on foxholes and filled the few remaining sandbags. The 3-inch antiaircraft batteries were specifically directed to keep one gun, plus all fire control instruments, fully manned. Mare units and the Island Commander hastily set up command posts. Commander Cunningham located his CP in Camp Two, and VMF-211's remained in the squadron office tent. Aviation personnel had to stick with their jobs of belting extra ammunition and transferring bulk fuel into more dispersible drums. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/I/USMC-I-III-2.html
6. Until Roosevelt decided to begin rearming for war, we had been drawing down our forces for decades after WWI. Jimmy Doolittle complained bitterly that we had worse aircraft than any of the other nations. In addition, our armor was much inferior. Only the number of tanks made the difference.
7. Patton was removed from control after Sicily. Eisenhower was told to not supply his forces in order to switch resources to the British Army.
8. There was no consultation. We declared war immediately following Pearl Harbor.
9. All of these nations were either the enemy or conquered by the enemy.

Nothing profound today, just a rant on the media's coverage of the weather.

I watch the Weather Channel and other news programs every morning while getting ready for work.  For the past week, we have been inundated by stories about tropical depression Ernesto.  The weatherman stands on a beach in Florida and explains that while it has not rained and the wind is around 5 mph, it is expected to rain and they may see winds as high as 20-30 MPH.  OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhh WOW!  Errr, it rained in Omaha last week 2 inches and we had 35 mph winds.  No reporters and hardly a mention on any station.

We see the banner on the every 5 minute "hurricane center" TRACKING ERNESTO.  We have human interest stories of people who have moved their boats away from the dock in case of wind.  Riveting!

And it is not just the Weather Channel.  I see it on Fox, on the local stations.  I really get the feeling that if the MSM could do it, they would generate their own hurricanes just to be able to cover something.

It is sad.  So really sad.

I have often wrestled with this question in my life.  After all, of my closest friends, I have two sets who are committed, long term couples who happen to be gay.  I love them like family and share my life and times with them freely.  So why would I bar them from the joys, responsibilities, and privileges of marriage?  I have no moral objection.  After all, I will let G*d determine who has sinned and set any appropriate punishment.  It just is not my role to do so.  But argue as I may, I cannot support the concept of gay marriage.

When I speak to my friends, they tell me of the things they lack.  The ability to inherit, the ability to make choices for each other if they are in the hospital and unable to make them for themselves, even the right to come to each other's bedside in a hospital emergency.  And this tears my heart.  It is not right!  And I believe that something needs to be done about these issues.  But....

I come to my decision through what I use for all of my philosophy.  I attempt to use reason and look at the intended and unintended consequences of any public policy choice.  So let us look at the arguments and the implications of allowing this choice.

Once past the arguments related to access and control, the next one I get is that homosexuality is not a choice, it is what they are.  This I understand, but tentatively reject.  If you can show me a genetic complex that makes someone gay, I will reverse this position and perhaps my entire position on this issue.  However, to the best of the research I have seen, being gay is no different than liking chocolate vs. vanilla.  It is a choice based on a huge number of factors, but a choice none the less.  And saying that you are helpless in your choice is the same as a person who is helpless to have another helping of cheesecake or helpless to avoid another drink of alcohol.  It may be hard, and it may not be what you want, but it is a choice you can make.  And since what you are is a sum of all your choices in life, there is no way to remove all of the hard choices, or would even want to.

The next argument I get is that marriage is a stabilizing force that needs to be available to whoever needs it.  And, after all, most marriages end in divorce, so if the people are committed, what makes this different?  And..and..

The problem with these arguments is that they apply to all kinds of choices of life style.  They apply to polygamy, line marriage, marriage of a mother and son, marriage to an animal, or anything else that a human mind can come up with.  And here is where my brakes come on full.

If we allow gay marriage, we will have to open these doors to a world we don't want and cannot afford.  Already, HBO is pushing a sympathetic look at polygamists in their Big Family show.  Pedophiles are pushing the age limits and asking to be able to marry 8 and 9 year olds.  After all, their argument goes, even children are sexual beings.  It is not a fantasy that all of these things have their advocates who are watching the debate with great interest.  Since all of the arguments apply as easily to them as to gay couples, and since morality has no place in legal decisions, any decision in support of gays ends the debate in the other areas as well and opens wide this door.

Well, so what?  You said you were not basing your objections on morality, so what is your problem?

My problem is the social implications of this.  Let us assume that it comes to pass that marriage is no longer defined in the traditional way.  My mother has a pension, medicare, social security, and great health insurance.  My wife and I are going to marry her so that when she dies we get the estate with no problem, get her pension and all benefits.  We will also marry our children so that it will pass down through the ages.  The unfortunate effect of this is to bankrupt the pension plan, because it never expected the marriage to last 1000 years.

My friend is going to marry his room mate.  Not because they are gay, but so they can do joint tax returns and share the benefits of marriage.  After all, how are you to prove they are not gay?  Require them to perform a sex act before a judge?

The local drug gang is now going to marry each other.  Now none of them can be required to testify against any other.

The pedophile down the street is going to marry a half dozen babies.  And since they are married, what he does is no crime.

No, this door cannot be opened.  It's impact on our society would be huge and destructive.  Yes, something needs to be done so two committed people can give rights to each other for medical and social needs.  This is mainly that civil union that is discussed.  And I have no problem with a civil union between children and parents or between a dozen adults.  These choices are yours to make and are not destructive.

I have discussed this at length with my gay friends.  They see my point, but reject my arguments as unlikely to occur and plead fairness.  I am certain though that the things I foresee happening are true and do not feel that being "fair" requires us to commit suicide as a civilization.  That is why I oppose gay marriage.

There is a group of people who do not understand the American population.  They threaten us, lie to us, manipulate us, and rob us.  If we let them, they will destroy our nation and our way of life.  It is us or them and we must begin to fight back.   This enemy is


Career politicians.  Yeah, you thought I was going to say Iraq.  Nope.  While they are an enemy and a threat, we have one closer to home.  And I do not spare Republicans when I tar Democrats or vice versa.  They are all pretty close to equally as bad.  And the more power they get, the worse they become.

What do I mean?  Over the years, the career politician stops worrying about what is right or what needs to be done and begins worrying only about two things:  reelection and power.  The ones who don't learn this, end up kicked to the curb because they cannot get anything done either because they will not sacrifice their principles or because they will not  give their support to unwise or inappropriate actions simply because someone with power wants it.

And it works easily.  First, we make elections run for 2 years.  When a politician only has 2 years in office, he has to have the perpetual campaign.  Even when he doesn't, Clinton showed us how the perpetual campaign should work.  This perpetual campaign drives the politician into worrying about sound bites vs. explaining issues, photo ops vs. actions and politically popular positions vs. the hard choices that need to be made.  Of course the media loves this because they always have something new to push and complain about and write about.  A politician who wants to do something hard like reform Social Security, balance the budget, improve medical care for Americans will be demonized and destroyed before anything will be done.

Another aspect that drives politicians is that they have to be seen doing something "for the folks back home."  It doesn't matter if it is not needed or if we don't have the money.  If you don't bring home the bacon or get the laws introduced, you obviously are a do-nothing.  We got problems here and we need someone who will so something about them!  So, we get the earmarks, the pork barrel, the laws that will never pass or will never pass constitutional muster.  Just so the politico can have his photo op and his sound byte.

Finally, with our gerrymandered districts, each politician has only one constituency.  If they stay with the politically correct positions (according to their demographic) they will never lose.  Only if they lose their base will they lose their job.  So, you will seldom see a politician agree with the other party.  They cannot afford to lose their base.  Look what happened to Joe Liebermann.

There are several steps we must take.  First we must go to the Iowa model of districts.  Consider Texas.  This is a state with 55% of registered voters registered Republican.  And the voting goes that way as well.  But, with the Democratic districts in place, they outnumbered Republicans in the House delegation by a 23-19 margin.  This is obviously wrong, so the Republicans came in and their 55% margin brought them to control by a 21-11 margin.  Oops.

The Iowa model is much simpler.  First, they forbid under criminal penalty for the people to use any demographic like race, voting in the last election, or wealth.  They require 4 aspects and only 4 aspects to be included:

1. Attempt to get equal population in each district.
2. Attempt to keep cities and counties within one district where possible
3. Avoid discontinuous districts where you cherry pick the ghetto of 3 towns or the wealthy areas of those same towns into a district of only rich or poor.
4. Keep the districts compact and as regular in shape as possible within the other constraints.

A computer program could easily be written, reviewed by both parties and implemented.  In Iowa this has made every election competitive.

A second thing to do is term limits on federal positions like we have in the states.  When you recognize that you cannot be a lifetime Senator, you have to look to your real life rather than just gathering your power and worrying about your reelection.

Third, we need to protect and defend the blocs, both the Daily Ks and Town Hall.  All of them need to have the protections of the press.  Without that, the mainstream media and their photo-ops, sound byte journalism will rule.  Without it, they cannot.

The last thing we need to do is to change how the laws written work.  I would say that they need to have a subject paragraph that indicates what the purpose of the law is.  If there is any portion of the law that does not apply to that purpose, it is automatically invalidated by the courts.  If it can be proved that the law does not achieve it's purpose, it can be invalidated upon proof in the courts.  And the paragraph cannot say something like "Finance the operation of government".  Nope.  Specifics only please.

Of course, all of this will require either constitutional amendments or a constitutional convention.  And we know how likely it is for our politicians to vote these amendments in when they will take away their security, power, and positions.  It looks to me like we need to begin working toward that constitutional convention.

No deep thoughts for today, just some random musings on a variety of topics.

One of my sayings (I am not sure if I created it or read it somewhere) is that you may not always get what you pay for, but you will always pay for what you get. If you go cheap, expect cheap products. If you pay a lot, you may still get cr*p, but it is less likely.

Another concept that I try to live by is that what you are now is a direct result of the choices you make in life. If you say you did this because you had no choices, you are lying to yourself. You always have choices. The choice may be to die, go to jail, etc. but it is a choice YOU make. The one thing that annoys me beyond sanity is people who make choices but are unwilling to accept that those choices have results that they may not like. And even not making a choice is making a choice. It is making the choice to allow others to chose for you.

Some quotes from my favorite author Lois Bujold:

Any community's arm of force--military, police, security--needs people in it who can do the necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary, and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.

The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in the future are imaginary. the ones they commit in the present--they are real.

The key of strategy , is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory.

If a horse’s ass can be a Count, why not the whole horse?

I think . . . I think she wants time. Time to be herself, to be where she is, who she is. Without being hurried or stampeded to take up one role or another, to the exclusion of all the rest of her possibilities. Wife is a pretty damned exclusive role, the way they do it here. She says Barrayar wants to put her in a box.

When you give each other everything, it becomes an even trade. Each wins all.

...you don’t pay back your parents. You can’t. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It’s a sort of entailment. Or if you don’t have children of the body, it’s left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one.

I’m not sure that seems fair....The family economy evades calculation in the gross planetary product. It’s the only deal I know where, when you give more than you get, you aren’t bankrupted—but rather, vastly enriched.

A life in ruins with vomiting is still a life in ruins.

...everyone has their folding-point, Miles. Their mortal vulnerability. Some just keep it in a nonstandard location.

Adulthood isn’t an award they’ll give you for being a good child. You can waste . . . years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just . . . take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I’m sorry you feel like that, and walk away.

Never, ever suggest they don’t have to pay you. What they pay for, they’ll value. What they get for free, they’ll take for granted, and then demand as a right. Hold them up for all the market will bear.

I wanted to give you a victory. But by their essential nature triumphs can’t be given. They must be taken, and the worse the odds and the fiercer the resistance, the greater the honor. Victories can’t be gifts.  But gifts can be victories, can’t they?

Lately, I have come to believe that the principal difference between heaven and hell is the company you keep there.  Could one judge a man by his company?

Reput ation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.  The friction tends to arise when the two are not the same. ...  There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reput ation wraps you in rewards. That’s soul-destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.

Why else do all the stories end when the Count’s daughter gets married? Hasn’t that ever struck you as a bit sinister? I mean, have you ever read a folk tale where the Princess’s mother gets to do anything but die young? I’ve never been able to figure out if that’s supposed to be a warning, or an instruction.

In my experience,” he said, “the trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonor, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into just two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn. It’s a survivor’s problem, this one.”

And, If Celtic Dragon reads this, I heartily recommend A Civil Campaign (the source for many of the above quotes).  It is one of Bujolds best.  While it is better if you know the back story, it does not require it.  The subject is:  Love, transgender, uterine replicators, genetic engineering, politics, relationships, and life.  It is a SF novel, a political novel, and a romance novel depending on your point of view.  To me, it is the finest book I have read in my life.

One of the things I hear from both sides of the aisle is the the Iraq war needs to end because it has gone on too long.  This is understandable but misguided.  It is understandable because the United States does not have a history of long wars.  After all, our average length of war in the 11 we have fought is less than 4 years and we are at 3 1/2 years in Iraq now.  We are now into the range of the Revolution (8 years), Civil War (4 years), WW I (4 years), WWII (6 years) and Vietnam (9 years).

But if you consider history, you can see this is an anomaly.  Let us consider other nations and peoples and what they have fought.

• Indians - The Chalukya Dynasty wars of expansion - 112 years
• Muslims - The battle with Byzantium - 700 years
• Europe - The Hundred Years War (125 years) and the 80 years war
• America - The Iroquois French wars- 55 years
• Japan - Japanese Civil War - 70 years
• Vietnam - Vietnamese Civil War - 38 years
• France - Napoleonic / Revolutionary wars - 28 years
• Vietnam - From their view, against the French then the Americans 28 years

I could go on for page after page of 20+ year wars, but you get the point.  So what is going on?  Why have we fought short wars and so many others fought long ones.

I think it is all based on the idea that war only ends when you break the will of the enemy to resist.  This can be because one side simply does not have enough interest in the point of contention to continue the fight (Vietnam, Mexican American) or because they have other wars in process (American Revolution) or because the enemy is to decimated to continue (WWII, Civil War). 

The wars that have dragged on are ones that seem to have a combination three characteristics:

1. Both sides feel that they cannot afford to lose
2. You are unwilling or unable to kill the great majority of the enemy
3. There is an external, untouchable place that can supply refuge, arms, and supplies.

Unfortunately in this war, all of these things apply. 

We cannot afford to lose because the middle east is a critical strategic location.  If we leave, we will allow the Mullahs of Iran and the dictator of the Islamic states to control this critical area.   Without our presence and with them flush from petro-cash, we will be unable to have any chance at control the development of weapons capable of destroying a US city.  Finally, the people we are fighting are fighting for the expansion of their fundamentalist brand of Islam throughout the globe and the destruction of our way of life.  Even if we disengage, they will not.

On the other side, it is much more simple.  The IslamoFacists cannot afford to lose because they believe that they are fighting for G*d.  If we win, our culture of tolerance, democracy, and decadence will hold sway over their lands.  This cannot be borne. 

So, neither side can afford to lose.  What about the willingness or ability to kill their fighters?  It is possible and is our current strategy.  Unfortunately, with their soldiers hiding in the midst of civilians and wearing no uniforms, any actions we take to destroy them will either be slow or deadly to noncombatants.  This can work, but if it is to work, we must accept that we will be there, spending money and lives for 20-100 years!

The other factor in an extended war is the availability of supplies and refuge.  Syria and Iran supply these.  If those nations were occupied, Gaza, Palestine, and the former Soviet republics come into play.  With Gaza and Palestine gone, Egypt and the rest of Africa are still there and still Muslim.  If we attack the Soviet republics, we will simply start the nuclear portion of this war early.

The only places where we can strike are at those 3 factors.  But what can we do?  Can we make this non-threatening to their ideals?  Only by allowing the destruction of our own way of life.

Can we kill the enemy?  Yes, as I said, we can.   But it will either take mass civilian casualties and imposition of a Saddam like set of controls or take decades of conflict.

Can we eliminate the suppliers?  Theoretically we could, but  the destruction of the suppliers simply widens the war and adds new suppliers on the new borders of the conflict.  

I honestly see only 3 possible strategies:

1. "Stay the Course" and bleed soldiers and wealth until either the enemy or our will breaks.
2. retreat from the area, create a fortress America where we block our borders, eject anyone who we think is a muslim or sympathizer, and create a police state where we can guard against plots against us.
3. Use "shock and awe" to totally devastate the enemy and their nations.

I dread any of these choices, but I have no more to offer.  I think that it is most likely that we will do all three in turn.  I think that as long as Bush is President, we will try to stay the course.  Once he is gone and popular will elects a Democrat or a Republican willing to withdraw, I think we will try the second.  Unfortunately or fortunately, we will not accept the requirement to turn the US into a police state and so our enemies will be able to hit us.  And believe, the IslamoFacists will hit us again and again.  Finally, a major terror attack will occur that will kill tens of thousands of our citizens.  At this point, I see an enraged nation taking the third option and committing genocide on large areas of the middle east.

This is not my preference, it is my prediction and I pray that I don't live to see it take place.  But I fear that it is within my lifetime.

In the blogs, in the media, and in personal conversation, I often hear statements that we were “lied” into Iraq by President Bush for oil, for shame to his father, because we are imperialists, and for dozens of other reasons.

In today’s episode, we will return to those thrilling days of yesteryear to examine what was said then.

I would first challenge my readers to identify the identity of the author of the following:

Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril. …

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high - but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

Our goal is not the victory of might but the vindication of right - not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this Hemisphere and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.

No guess? John F. Kennedy, speaking about the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Of the “lies” spoken by President Bush as he “lied us into Iraq”, all of them seem to revolve about their possession of WMDs. Were they seeking yellow cake, did they have the weapons, would they use them? Many libs say that he knew there were none, but used the argument about their existence to demand war. Is this really possible? Lets look at what people who should have known said about WMDs in Iraq BEFORE George Bush became President and could color the intelligence.

In February 1998, Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger, and Bill Cohen spoke before a group at the Ohio State University. While their opponents of the “peace activist” left tried to yell them down, they said the following:

Iraq is a long way from Ohio, but what happens there matters a great deal here.
For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or
biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we 
face. And it is a threat against which we must, and will, stand firm…

But the evidence is strong that Iraq continues to hide prohibited weapons and

materials. There remains a critical gap between the number of weapons we know 
Iraq produced and the amount we can confirm were destroyed…

Iraq must permit UN inspectors to do their jobs,as the Security Council has 
directed. If this does not occur, we must be, and we are, prepared to use 
military force….

Now, the United Nations believes that he still has very large quantities of VX.
VX is a substance, a nerve agent, which is so deadly that a single drop can 
kill you within a couple of minutes.

But Saddam has delayed; he has duped; he has deceived the inspectors from 
the very first day on the job.

It was clear from this speech that the Clinton plan was to bomb the places where these weapons were made and stored, and in fact, two days later, there was a massive aerial campaign to do just that. While there is a disagreement between Bush’s cabinet and Clinton’s on the tactics to use, there was no disagreement on whether the threat was real or whether we should act.

A few other people believed the same. A group of 27 senators including Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Luger, Kerry, Feinstein, Daschle, and Landrieu wrote a letter on Oct 9, 1998 instructing President Clinton to:

“…take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”

Nancy Pelosi, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in December 1998 wrote:
Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.

The responsibility of the United States in this conflict is to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, to minimize the danger to our troops and to diminish the suffering of the Iraqi people….

I believe in negotiated solutions to international conflict. This is, unfortunately, not going to be the case in this situation where Saddam Hussein has been a repeat offender, ignoring the international community's requirement that he come clean with his weapons program.

There are many many more that I could list, but that is a small sample.

But, I hear from many that Korea has WMD and other nations do. Why Iraq and not them? I’ll let Secretary Albright answer for me from the OSU speech:

I think that it is clear that other countries have weapons of mass
destruction. It is a question of whether there is a proclivity to 
use them, and Saddam Hussein is a repeat offender and I think it is
very important for us to make clear that the United States and the 
civilized world cannot deal with somebody who is willing to use those
weapons of mass destruction on his own people, not to speak of his neighbors.

So, we can now be sure that there were no lies here. Intelligence failures? Maybe. Weapons moved out of country? Almost certainly. Weapons still to be found? Who knows? But then, why did we go in?

Lets see why George Bush said he wanted to go in. From his 2003 State of the Union:

Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world. The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct -- were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq's regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see, and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary; he is deceiving. From intelligence sources we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

And that, dear reader, is why we fight.

References:

OSU Speech – http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/02/20/98022006 tpo.html
Senate Letter - http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Letters,%20reports%20and%20statements/levin-10-9-98.html
Nancy Pelosi – http://www.house.gov/pelosi/priraq1.htm
John F. Kennedy - http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/jk35/cuba/cuba01.htm
2003 State of The Union - http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

One of my favorite books of all time is Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. It has a lot of importance to now with the WOT and in other aspects. However, the one I want to talk about is the presented concept of citizenship.

In the book, citizenship is a right, but it must be chosen. In order to become a citizen, you must volunteer to give 2 years of your life to your nation. In order to vote, hold office, be on a jury, or to do anything in the public sphere, you must become a citizen. What do you do in those 2 years? Whatever you are qualified to do and the nation needs. However, as the book said, "even if you are blind and paralyzed, we will find something for you to do. It may be counting hairs on a caterpillar by touch, but we will find you a job."

This system was created was after a world wide devastating war. The soldiers decided that if you would not die for your nation, you should have no say in how it was run. They also decided that if you would not sacrifice for the good of others, you would be unlikely to run the nation for the good of its citizens.

Contrast this with the current mania for "getting out the vote." MTV has their rock the vote campaign; we register to vote when we get our driver's licenses; sound trucks go through neighborhoods exhorting people to vote; we make internet voting possible (how fraudulent do you want your election today?); and we give extended, no reason required, absentee balloting.

And what do you get? You get people voting who have no idea of the issues or who the candidates are or what their positions are. You have people like a friend of mine who votes on whether she likes the name of the candidate. How sad is that? My sister-in-law voted for Bill Clinton because "He can put his boots under my bed anytime". And you wonder why we have the system of government we have now? I would rather a committed leftist from Daily Kos vote than a highly conservative housewife on a farm who has never watched a news show or read a newspaper. At least the leftist knows the issues and what he/she is voting for. I may think they are blind and stupid, but at least they care. The conservative lady is going to vote for the cute candidate or the one that shows best on TV. Not for the one that will do what needs to be done.

I don't know if we can or should get to the world of Starship Troopers. But I think we need to make voting inconvenient and registration require some actual action by an interested party. No 3 day voting. Require excuses for absentee ballots. Require the voter to go to the polls in person.

Voting is not a duty like paying taxes. It is a right and your responsibility is to do it well. You have the responsibility to work for your nation, your state, your community, and your family. Not to just vote for the hot guy.

One of the big drums that the liberal media thumps is the one where global warming is caused by our use of SUVs.  They pound this over and over ad nauseam and demand that we accept this part of their catechism.

The only problem is that there is not a single assumption here, there are 3, each with their own level of proof.  These are:  The earth is warming up; It is warming up because of greenhouse gasses; CO2 is the gas that is causing the greenhouse effect.

To discuss this, lets first start with the physics of the greenhouse effect.  What is it and how does it work?

All objects above zero degrees Kelvin radiate heat.  As an object gets hotter, the peak of the frequency band that it radiates (where most of the radiated energy is emitted) shifts toward shorter wavelengths.  Thus, a warm hotplate on a stove radiates mainly in the infrared band, which while invisible can still be felt as heat.  As the hotplate is heated more, its radiation peak moves up into the visible region to red and then orange.  The Sun radiates a lot of energy at ultraviolet wavelengths, shorter than the visible.  The atmosphere is transparent to certain bands of this, which reach the Earth's surface and are absorbed.  But since the Earth is a lot cooler than the Sun, this energy is reradiated not at ultraviolet wavelengths but at the much longer infrared, to which the atmosphere is not as transparent.  In our atmosphere, water vapor comprises the primary greenhouse gas, comprising between a third and half of the total.  CO2 comprises around 10% of the total.  In addition to this, Water vapor absorbs across the spectrum (both incoming and outgoing) making water vapor contribute approximately 95% of the total heat capture in our atmosphere.  On the other hand, CO2 absorbs in only 2 small bands and currently provides less than 1% of the total.

In the greenhouse model, there are 3 aspects that must be considered.  First, without global warming, we would be frozen to death.  Global warming caused by all sources increases the temperature of the Earth by 33 degrees centigrade or around 60 fahrenheit.  Next, the heating will occur first at the poles (where atmosphere is densest) and last, that it will occur in the lower reaches of the atmosphere first.

Now, back to our assumptions.  The first one is whether the earth is really warming up.  The answer to this is a conditional yes.  We have recorded approximately a degree of warming in the past century.  However, there is significant impact by the heat island effect in that the sensors were placed in areas where cities grew up around them.  As a city is hotter because of it's concrete and steel than a meadow, the heat is shown to increase.  Formal studies have been done to adjust for this and have found that this comprises 1/2 of the total increase.

The second assumption is a stretch.  Science shows now that Mars is warming and that the sun is experiencing turbulent times.  Also, the warming that has been proven occurred prior to 1940 and the globe actually cooled between 1940 & 1970 causing scientists to warn about the new Ice age.  If this greenhouse effect is causing it, why did the temperature go down while the concentrations went up?  Who is causing the greenhouse effect on Mars?

The most interesting thing in this is that all of the modeling software that is used to "prove" global warming from greenhouse gasses are unable to predict the past, let alone tell us what the future would be.  Between 1940 and 1970, all of the models predict between half and one degree of warming while the actual measurements show a 1 degree decline.  In addition, as the heating should begin at the poles if it is caused by greenhouse gas, how do we explain that Antarctica is in fact cooling?

What else could be the culprit?  Well, there is the sun, which is the source for most of the heat we have.  In addition, every mechanical or biological mechanism releases heat as it burns fuel.  As we have more brakes heating from slowing our vehicles, more engines emitting waste heat, and more factories generating electricity by heating fluids, it is obvious that we are generating significant waste heat ourselves.  Consider the previously mentioned heat island effect here.  Obviously the Greenhouse effect causal relationship to the 1/2 degree warming is tenuous at best.

Finally the easiest one to reject is that CO2 is the culprit in this supposed greenhouse warming.  CO2 is one of the weaker greenhouse gasses and as human activity adds only 30 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere annually.  Of that, burning fossil fuels in our cars and other vehicles put out about 5% of the total.  Sounds like a lot, but the atmosphere has approximately 1.8 trillion tons of carbon in it in steady state, so human activity is adding approximately 1.6% of the existing carbon, and our vehicles are adding  .008% of the total annually.

So, does human formed green house gas global warming exist?  I leave the answer to you.

References: Bailey, Ronald, 1995 (Ed.), The True State of the Planet, Free Press, NY
Baliunas, Sallie, 1994, "Ozone and Global Warming: Are the Problems Real?", West Coast Roundtable for Science and Public Policy, Dec. 13
Baliunas, Sallie, 2002, "The Kyoto Protocol and Global Warming," Speech to Hillsdale Coll, February
Baliunas, Sallie, Arthur B. Robinson and Zachary W. Robinson, 2002, Global Warming: A Guide to the Science, Fraser Institute, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Hogan, James P., Kicking the Sacred Cow, ISBN: 0-7434-8828-8, Baen Publishing

One of the most common things I hear is a complaint that "this act is not a big deal."  This act may be s*d*my, or extreme piercing, out of wedlock birth, or even divorce.  And it is really hard to argue with the person.  Because the act or action is "just a little" over the line drawn for appropriate behavior, or it is simply caused by a mistake, or it is just human nature.

I want to argue that we should ban these things totally. 

People in general push boundaries.  Listen to the TV and Movie producers and directors talking about how this pushes the limits of the rules.  Listen to Howard Stern talk about how he can push the limits on his new satellite network.  Watch the artists push the limits in their art.  Again, this is human nature.

The problem comes in that our complaints that "this is just a little over the line", result in the line being moved... just a little.  This becomes common and accepted and is no longer over any line.  As the line moves, our boundary pushers have to go a little further to get past the boundaries.

Once all pornography was banned.  Did it exist?  Sure it did!  And kids passed it around in hiding and were excited that they were looking at something naughty.  Now, you can see what used to be passed around on any beach in the country.  Playboy came out and pushed the boundaries until they moved.  Then Hustler and others.  Now hard core porn and porn stars are mainstream.  What is next?  Porn snuff flixs?

And it is this way with everything.  Unwed birth was a total taboo.  But we must understand that this is simply a mistake or a bad choice by the mother.  You can't blame her.  So, now unwed mothers sit in classes, have special care taken with them, get special benefits, and in the black population 70% of births are unwed.

Homosexuality was evil and shunned, and in most cases illegal.  Was it still going on?  Absolutely.  It has gone on since man has.  But more and more, it is main stream and approved.  Bisexuality is moving into the realm of good.  Pedophilia is coming along next.  Why?  Because the boundaries have moved.

We need to set boundaries and hold on to them with both hands.  If we do, the behaviors will not stop, but those who want to push them won't have to go into necrophilia, main stream porn, the garbage that is today's art, and many other places.

Ok, so yesterday, I examined the basic problem of why we cannot pay teachers what they deserve.  I also showed that the only way we will be able to raise their salary to something close to what they are worth for the importance of their work is to reduce their numbers.

But wait, will simply paying teachers more really have an impact on the quality of education?And if you increase class size, won't you be giving each child less attention and thus poorer education?  The answer is no, pay does not equal quality, and yes less attention can result.  However, once you start reducing numbers of teachers and raising the salary, the better quality teachers will begin to want to stay.  And the school administrators will be able to afford to eliminate poor performers. 

The current form of education was invented during the industrial revolution.  It is designed after the efficient but non-human centric assembly line.  It is the model today, and originally required fewer teachers to teach more kids.  This has slowly changed, so we can have more personal attention.  But this is the problem.  We no longer have the benefity of the assembly line in reducing the numbers, but we cannot afford the model with the number of teachers that are required.  This begs the question of how do you reduce the numbers of teachers and increase class size without reducing the quality of the education?  The answer is in the title of this post.  Let the teachers teach.

Ask yourself, what are computers good at?  What can they do better than any human being?  They can do repetitive tasks that require good memory and that have definite answers that need no judgement.  Gosh, there are a lot of tasks that description fits in school.  There are the canned lectures, multiple choice or true/false tests, grading, reading, and correcting math.  There is research and communications that at which computers excel.

What are people better at?  Coaching, inspiring, answering open ended questions, answering essay questions, and providing discipline.  In other words, teaching.

So, picture if you will, a school where your best teachers have charge of a room with as many as hundreds of students.  They may be mixed in age and grade.  There is a senior teacher and several others to run the room.  Half to two thirds of the students are working in private spaces with their computer.  The rest are around round tables of various size working with each other and being coached by the teachers who roam the room.  The kids are put into groups by themselves or by the computer depending on need.

What do you mean need?  It is my contention that each student is better than some other student in some area.  This is specially true when you mix children of varying ages.  One student may be a whiz at math and poor in history.  Fine.  I pair that student with a student who is poor in math to allow him/her to mentor the other.  I have learned that the act of teaching teaches the teacher almost as much as it does the student.  Thus both students improve.  Also, this forces students who may not know each other into contact in a structured way and improves social skills and breaks cliques and makes new friendships.

The teachers are roaming to assist with questions or things that come up in the groups.  We can also group kids of similar skills and expertise to have round robin discussions of what they have learned.  Much of this can be facilitated by the teachers.  Actually, this is the one-room school room method, and studies have shown that this works better than traditional pedagogy.  However, it lacks structure and our bureaucracies have eliminated it as "inefficient".  I say bring it back.

Now what is going on in the private spaces?  We have recorded the best teachers doing their lectures.  These are played back to the students.  If they get stuck, or don't understand, they can press a button, alerting a teacher that they need help.  They also have hyperlinks throughout the lesson that allow them to pause the lesson and drive into details of the lecture for deeper understanding.  We could hire the great film makers to make history films that are accurate as we can make them, but engrossing and exciting.  We can provide chat links to experts in areas for further help.  The possibilities are endless.

And this does not even get to the most exciting part.  Half of the problem with education is that the kids that get the concepts are held back by the ones who don't and the ones who don't get it are forced to move ahead without understanding.  This monolithic class structure bores the quick learners and confuses the slow.  With this new system, one child could be in 3rd grade, reading at 5th grade level, and doing math at 1st grade level.

The computer would force more work in math, of course, but the child could move at his own speed and not go on until they know the subject.  And testing!  Every 10-15 minutes, the computer would do a pop quiz.  This quiz would be 80% of questions on the child's current level, 10% on material that the child has passed, 5% on material the child has not yet reached, and 5% on any material, selected randomly.  This will allow the computer to determine if the child needs to go back and review old information or if they are ready to go to harder stuff.  It will also hook their interest in different learning aspects and finally give the teachers insight into the child's progress.

Think about it.  No social advancement in the schools.  Every child learns the subject before moving on, but no student gets shamed by being "held back".  An advanced student can go as far and as fast as he/she wants but a slow one can go at their own pace.  And finally, the jock can end up being responsible to mentor the brain on shop or on the playing field while that same brain is responsible for coaching the jock math or science.  The slow 12 year old can work with 8 year olds and feel self worth from helping others.  Also, with this forced interaction, there may be problems, but more likely it will result in the two kids who may never talk outside of school learning that all people are the same and becoming friends.

Yes, this changes the way teachers teach and makes teachers really be competent.  You cannot have a teacher that is only good at writing tests or giving the canned lectures.  Teachers will have to be motivators, instructors, and coaches.  But that is what I am told by teachers I know is the best part of teaching.  To me, everyone wins.

Hello, as the first entry in my blog, I want to go outside of the events of the day to a subject that is near and dear to my heart. That subject is the education of our children.  This is the most critical task that any society has, but we are failing in this job.

One of the criticisms I hear is that we don't pay our teachers enough.  This is a valid complaint, but misguided.  Why misguided?  After all, don't the teachers "deserve" more?  Sure they do.  And Tiger Woods does not deserve $100 million a year.  But that misses the point totally.

Basic economics indicate that there are 3 factors that go into the price of an item.  These are scarcity of the “raw materials” or talent, value of the product to the consumers, and size of marketplace.  So, lets examine these 3 things as they apply to teachers.

Teachers are not that scarce as a group.  There are millions of current and former teachers out there.  There is some artificial reduction of the supply due to restrictions that say you must have an education degree and/or certification, but the supply is enormous.  If we paid more, there would certainly be sufficient supply.  Right now there are few true shortages even with the poor pay.  Therefore, shortages will not drive the price any higher than where it is.  It is over minimum wage, but not at the level of a doctor or lawyer.

The product is wildly valuable to the individual consumers and to the nation as a whole, so we have to consider that we will spend considerable resources on this product.  Unfortunately, this is the only reason that their salaries are even as high as they are now.

The last item is the sticking point.  At first glance, the size of the marketplace is huge, but that is an illusion.  While, according to the census bureau, there are over 58 million pre-college students in the USA, the average class size has fallen below 20 students per teacher.  With the class sizes dropping, and in many cases 2 teachers being in the room (teacher and student teacher), the market that must pay for that/those teachers is only 20 families plus the general population of families with no children in school.  In order to pay a teacher (with no assistant) $40,000 per year, each parent would have to pay $2,000 just to the teacher.  And since school budgets tend to have about a third of the money for teacher salaries, exclusive of management, maintenance, utilities, and capital budgets, each family must pay $6,000 a year per child!

We do consider this to be critical as a nation, so we spread this around to everyone, but it does explain why teachers get paid less than Tiger Woods.  If every family paid a teacher $1,000 each, a teacher would get $20,000 a year.  If each of the people who consume the work of Tiger Woods paid him a penny, his income would be in the millions since billions of people follow his golf.  Each person values Tiger less than a teacher, but his size of market is sooooo much bigger.

And the US as a whole cannot solve this.  Even if we take the number of households paying taxes, we have 112 million households (only 50% of which are paying taxes) and 6.2 million full time teachers in the US.  Note that is 1 teacher for every 18 tax paying households in the USA! Back to that $6,000 a year!

The only solution to this conundrum is to figure out how to increase the size of market of an individual teacher.  In other words, let each teacher teach more children.  This eliminates any issue of supply, decreases the amount that each family must pay, and still gives the teacher a raise.

My solution on how this is done in my next post.